


how much we have left

by daisylincs



Series: Agents of Birthdays [18]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family Feels, Fluff and Feels, Friendship, Gen, Gift Fic, Happy Birthday Rin!!, Implied Phil Coulson/Melinda May - Freeform, Implied Tony Stark/Pepper Potts - Freeform, Irondad, Missing Scene, Missing... Relationship?, Mission Fic, Reunions, because come on; Tony and the other Avengers deserved to KNOW about Coulson, birthday fic, in which Tony finds out Coulson is alive, philindaisy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28733526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisylincs/pseuds/daisylincs
Summary: Tony Stark has been having a Bad Day: first, the kid "borrows" some of his StarkBoosters without permission, then he almost gets himself killed when a building explodes, andthen,as if that wasn't bad enough already, he runs into an old friend who wasdefinitelydead the last time he saw him. Oh, and apparently Coulson has a wife and daughter now.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Phil Coulson & Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson & Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Phil Coulson & Tony Stark
Series: Agents of Birthdays [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1886911
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	how much we have left

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Coal_burningbright](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coal_burningbright/gifts).



> Dear Rin,
> 
> How about I start this off pretty simple, and wish you, as sincerely as I'm able, a very, very happy birthday? Yeah, I think that sounds good to me - so, love, ahhh, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
> 
> The second thing that pops into my mind to tell you is that, AHHHHH, you and May have the same birthday!!! Having a fandom birthday twin like that is just the coolest thing EVER, and I know from experience that those bonds can be the most special you'll ever dream of - and in that vein, I'm really, really happy for you both. 💜
> 
> The third note I have for you is something of a nostalgic one, since it's a bit of a tradition now for me to go down memory lane in the A/Ns of birthday fics. You and I, love, first met during a Trick or Treat challenge we were both doing ~~(or, in my late-as-fuck case, are _still_ doing and trying to finish.)~~ I remember, upon seeing your URL and starting to interact with you, how I just thought, GOSH, this person is so cool - and they have _excellent_ taste in ships, too! 
> 
> Someone that cool deserves a REALLY cool present, so I've used this opportunity to pull out an idea that I've always thought was fantastic - namely, what if Irondad met Philindaisy? 😍 Canonically, this takes place in... well, honestly, I have NO idea how the timelines would even _begin_ to work out for this, lol. Let's just... ignore that piddly little thing called canon time passage, and imagine Daisy, Coulson and May from about mid-season 3 meeting Irondad a couple of months after Homecoming, but with noooo Infinity War in sight. 
> 
> And I really hope you think that's a cool idea, too - because, Rin, from the bottom of my heart, that's what I think you are. _Cool_. Very much so! A little bit of a hot mess kind of cool, it's true, but decidedly still awesome. And today, I really hope you have a fantastic, just-as-cool-as-you birthday!! <333

Tony Stark was having a terrible day _before_ he saw his old SHIELD liaison/team handler/almost friend apparently back from the dead, and with a wife and daughter no less. 

To explain: the day had _started_ off pretty okay, with Pepper actually having the time to share a lazy breakfast with him, and one completely unbroken by business and company reports, no less. 

It had been great to just… spend time with her, no worries or world-ending events threatening to tear them apart at any minute. 

Of course, they both had to leave and go see to their respective jobs soon enough, but Tony in particular found himself properly _smiling_ as he walked into the lab. 

The smile dropped off his face approximately zero point two seconds later, though. 

"Peter," he said in a tone of very forced calm, flicking two fingers to bring up the feed of his errant Spiderling to the main screen, _"what_ do you think you're doing?" 

Peter had the nerve to shoot Tony a double thumbs-up from his current position dangling upside-down from the edge of a building. "I'm patrolling, sir," he said in a _far_ too innocent tone. 

Tony made another gesture in midair, bringing up a hologram of the latest model of StarkBoosters he had been working on. "What did I tell you about these, huh?" He gave Peter half a second to think about it, as _if_ he needed reminding, then pressed on, "I said -" 

"Not to use them," Peter said at the exact same time as Tony, turning the right way up with a visible wince. 

Tony nodded significantly, folding his arms. "And what did you do?" 

"I… used them," Peter admitted in a rush, dropping his gaze straight to the floor - which, in his case, was an impressive thirty feet below. 

"You used them," Tony repeated with heavy emphasis. "Kid, do you know _why_ I told you not to use them?"

Peter opened his mouth to reply, but Tony didn't give him the chance. "It was because the isooctane trimethylpentane was still exposed to naphthene, and those two compounds mixed together are highly volatile; volatile and unstable enough to blow the arm right off your suit." He glared pointedly at said arm on the Spider-Man suit, where Peter had ill-advisedly strapped on the StarkBoosters that morning. 

"No, I know, I know that," Peter said hurriedly, raising one hand reassuringly (Tony resisted the impulse to tell him to hold onto those webs of his with both hands at all times.) "I stabilised the reaction by adding glutathione, which will -" 

"Act as an antioxidant and inhibit the progress of the reaction before it can become dangerous," Tony finished for him, nodding grudgingly as he ran through the calculations and found them sound. 

Peter beamed at him. "Exactly! Now I get to try out these dope boosters on my suit, _and_ I won't get my arm blown off by them." 

Tony rolled his eyes, but even he had to admit that there was only really affection behind it. A _"You did good, kid,"_ was just forming on his lips when -

_Booooom._

In a burst of pure, blazing light, the building right behind Peter exploded spectacularly outwards, the corona of orange fire blooming in almost comical slow-motion towards Spider-Man, still hanging from the side of the next building over. 

Tony could have sworn the world stopped right then, the explosion paused mid-disaster as his mind ran frantically through all the possible avenues he could take, all the suits he might be able to send, all the _possible_ connections he had in the area… before concluding, with an awful, stomach-churning finality, that there was nothing at all he could do. 

Fortunately, Peter's Spider-sense saved him, and he shot out a web _just_ in time to swing out on it in a wide arc, managing to escape the bloom of fire behind him by a hair. 

Tony could breathe again as he landed safely on the roof of the next building in line, singed and stumbling, but _alive._

"Stay right there, kid," he barked almost before he himself had time to process what was happening, holding out a hand to summon the newest prototype of his Iron Man suit to him. 

Peter, of course, ignored him completely - as soon as he'd somewhat found his feet again, he fired up the StarkBoosters, shooting forward and straight into the smoking ruins of the destroyed building. 

_"Shit,"_ Tony swore, firing up his own suit's boosters. 

The kid was going to get himself killed someday, there was almost no doubt about it - but _not_ on Tony's watch. 

He had faced down a literal god, but he didn't think he had _ever_ flown this fast before - making it to Peter's location in less than seven minutes, when it would have taken a reasonably sized jet at least fifteen. 

He landed and immediately took off for the building at a dead run, ignoring the screams of civilians around him and the wails of sirens. That building had obviously been rigged, chances were that there was another bomb set up just in case some fifteen-year-old (wait, dammit, no, the kid had turned sixteen) do-gooder was there to blunder in with his pure heart and desire to help, and accidentally set them off - 

But he needn't have worried. Peter's suit's AI, connecting with FRIDAY in Tony's own suit, calmly informed him that two secondary bombs had been located, and sufficiently webbed up by Peter. 

Tony exhaled a soft breath of relief - one problem down, at least - but was still the question of who had set this up, and if it had been a deliberate trap for Peter. 

And, more pressingly, if there were any _people_ they could still get out of the wreckage. 

FRIDAY had answers for one of those questions, at least - flashing red heat signatures in the left corner of his visor indicated that there was a group of six people trapped under a massive pile of rubble. 

Even as he watched, though, the rubble was lifted aside, and another red figure (this time identified with a Stark tracker tag in the shape of a spider) started helping the people out. 

Tony watched the scene for a moment, feeling a burst of pride on the kid's behalf - reckless and immature as he was (stealing boosters for his suit because they were dope, _really_ \- and no, he told the little voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Pepper's, it didn't matter that he would have done the exact same thing) Peter was still a genuinely great guy and, even if he didn't believe it himself, a hero. 

Then FRIDAY politely but firmly broke into the moment, pointing out a similar situation on the opposite side of the building. 

Tony gave himself a little shake - what was he even _doing_ getting sentimental, that was so unlike him - and flew over to go deal with it immediately. 

Still, though, the warm, proud feeling deep inside the place he always claimed didn't contain a heart wasn't fading away even as he heaved at an enormous concrete slab, holding it up so the people underneath could scramble out. 

He gave them his standard "Don't mention it," in response to their tearful thanks, and made sure to add that there would be medical waiting outside - but his mind was still distracted by the very uncharacteristic (and, though he'd never admit it, very pleasant) glow in his chest as he thought of Peter doing the same thing on the other side of the building. 

The kid really _was_ doing good, Tony thought with what even he grudgingly admitted was affectionate pride. 

And, together, they managed to clear the building in what had to be a record, getting all the people out without a single extra casualty. Soon, there were only two red heat signatures left - predictably, on opposite sides of the building. 

"I'll take the left side," Tony told Peter through their connected AIs, waiting for the kid's uncharacteristically serious nod before swooping over to the affected area. 

He got the guy out easily, relieved to see that there was barely a scratch on him from where the two concrete slabs had shielded him. After checking that he could, in fact, make it to medical on his own, Tony hovered in mid-air for a moment, silently congratulating himself (and Peter) on a job well done. 

That was when he saw it. 

A crisp, familiar blue suit, impeccably fitted on a familiar - and _impossible_ \- man. 

Tony thought he might actually drop out of the sky, so great was his shock. That wasn't… that just wasn't _possible!_ Phil Coulson was dead, he had seen the man's blood-stained Captain America trading cards himself. 

His eyes had to be playing tricks on him, or… maybe it was the visor? 

Some distant, logical part of him knew that Stark tech didn't just _malfunction_ \- he was too good for that - but that didn't stop him from telling FRIDAY, in a voice that came out more than a little strangled, "Run facial recognition on that man." 

The AI was silent for a moment, processing, then said in her cool, impersonal voice, "That is Phil Coulson, Director of SHIELD." 

Director of… This just got more and more impossible by the minute! SHIELD was supposed to be in ruins thanks to those Nazi bastards Cap had taken care of, and as for Phil Coulson, well, _God,_ he was supposed to be at least twenty feet underground. 

But even as his mind was thinking all this, the scene continued to unfold right in front of his disbelieving eyes. 

"Stark and Spider-Man are here, so we don't have to send a team in after all," Coulson was saying in the calm, almost-friendly-even-while-giving-orders voice that Tony remembered so well. 

"You sure we don't need to send our people in just to do a sweep of the area?" another voice, brusque and businesslike, asked, and Tony noticed for the first time that there was someone else standing next to Coulson. 

It was a woman, Asian, with dark hair and an unimpressed expression that would have given Natasha pause. She was dressed in dark, fitted combat pants and a black leather jacket, and though she wasn't wearing any visible weapons, something about her clearly said, _don't mess with me._

She was standing right by Coulson's side, too - so close that their shoulders were _almost,_ not quite but _almost,_ brushing. Her arms were folded, and she was sporting an impressive glare, but he couldn't help but notice that Coulson seemed completely at ease in her presence. And, it was true, Coulson had seemed at ease in most situations - but he looked genuinely _comfortable_ with this woman standing beside him.

Coulson was speaking again, shaking his head. "No, Stark will have it handled," he said. "We can have Fitzsimmons send in the DWARVES to make sure about the bomb work, but -" 

"Did you say _Stark?"_ a third voice interrupted, and, since this day wasn't unbelievable enough yet, apparently, another woman came skidding around the corner, stopping just short of crashing into Coulson and shooting him a bright grin. 

If Tony had to guess, he would put her in about her mid-twenties; twenty-five or maybe twenty-six. She was a little taller than the first woman, and her hair was shorter, but in all other respects she resembled her a _lot_ \- the same fitted jeans and leather jacket, and lack of any obvious weapons. 

She did, however, look a _little_ less intimidating than her… mother? - her face was more open, and something about the cheerful sparkle in her brown eyes reminded Tony of Peter. 

"Can we go meet Tony Stark, please?" the younger woman was saying, turning to Coulson with wide, imploring eyes. 

The older woman rolled her eyes. "We're SHIELD agents, Daisy, we have a mission to complete." 

The younger woman - _Daisy -_ ignored her, in favour of turning to Coulson and clasping her hands under her chin. "I've always wanted to meet Tony Stark, can we _please?"_

Coulson, for his part, just looked amused. "Come on, May, let her go," he said, lightly nudging the woman beside him with his shoulder. "What harm can it do?" 

Daisy, immediately sensing that May was the one to persuade, turned to her with a pleading expression on her face, immediately launching into a long list of reasons why it would apparently be a good tactical decision to let her meet him. 

And Tony was really glad of the tree obscuring their view of him, because he… well, he could not _believe. his. eyes._ First of all - the older woman, May, had said they were all SHIELD agents, but this didn't look like a conversation between two agents and their director! This looked like… well, it looked like an excitable daughter begging her mom for an ice-cream, while her dad looked on in affectionate, amused indulgence. 

_Holy. Shit._

It hit Tony like a truckful of bricks - not only was Phil Coulson alive, but he also had a wife and daughter! 

The only words for that were, what the _fuck?_

And Tony said as much, right there in the middle of the sky in front of a destroyed building - "what the _fuck?"_

Coulson, May and Daisy all froze immediately at the sound, and that was when he saw they were most _definitely_ SHIELD agents, after all - May curled both hands up in front of her face in a martial arts defensive posture, Coulson calmly reached for the gun tucked into the back of his pants beneath his suit jacket, and Daisy, strangely enough, just raised one hand, palm out. 

Both women, he noticed, had stepped slightly in front of Coulson, covering him from both sides as though he was the weakest member of their little party. 

"Whoa, weapons down," Tony said, flying around the tree and landing on the ground in front of them, flipping open his visor and raising his hands to show he wasn't armed. "It's just me." 

Daisy, he noticed, looked delighted, while May continued to appear unimpressed, grudgingly easing out of her fighting stance. 

The bulk of his attention, though, was focused on Coulson, and he took a slow, almost-threatening step towards the man in question. 

"I said _what the fuck,"_ he explained, "because Phil Coulson - what the _fuck?"_

"Ah," Coulson said, wincing slightly. 

Tony lost it. "Ah? _Ah???_ I thought you were _dead,_ Coulson, Fury told us all you were dead." Despite his best efforts, his voice cracked a little as he said, "And I _grieved_ for you. We all did. And now the first thing you say to me is _ah?"_

Coulson's expression was as collected and calm as ever, but his blue eyes were full of raw, conflicting emotion. "I'm so sorry," he told Tony, who thought it might have been the sincerest thing he had ever heard from the SHIELD agent - no, _director_ now, apparently. 

"I was dead, though," Coulson said quietly. 

Tony wanted to snort, and say something like, "well, _clearly_ not, you're standing right in front of me" - but something in the other man's gaze stopped him.

"Are you being serious?" he asked instead, folding his arms. 

Coulson nodded once, solemnly. "Fury brought me back with Kree blood," he said. "I didn't ask for it." 

Tony blinked, thinking that, no _way,_ he must have heard something wrong. "Fury brought you back… with Kree blood?" 

"Yep," the woman called Daisy said cheerfully, adding helpfully, "Kree are aliens, by the way. Their DNA doesn't mix so well with humans', so Coulson went insane for a while and started carving patterns on walls." 

Tony could only stare, and Daisy winced apologetically. "Sorry," she said, clapping her hand over her mouth, only to drop it a second later and hiss "shut _up,_ Fitz, it's Tony Stark, you would _not_ do any better," presumably into her comms. 

Coulson shook his head, but there was only fondness in his gaze as he looked at Daisy. "She's right, though," he said, half-shrugging one shoulder and grimacing slightly. "I did carve maps into walls." 

Tony decided that it was in his best interest not to even try and untangle that, so instead he said in a voice laced with his trademark sarcasm, "Did you carve up all your phones and communications technology, too?" 

_"Ouch,"_ Daisy muttered into her sleeve. 

Coulson's expression turned pained, and he opened his mouth to say something, but Tony cut across him, his voice rough. "All I'm saying is, would it have been so hard to just let us know you were alive after the big battle? And even if it wasn't immediately, or even in person, we - the team - would all have liked to know." 

Coulson took a deep breath, and blew it out slowly. He held Tony's gaze for a moment, hesitating, clearly choosing his words carefully. 

Tony folded his arms, preparing himself for another SHIELD-style evasion speech, probably complete with a list of reasons why it had been _better for the team's morale and overall performance_ to continue believing he was dead. 

But instead, Coulson said, "You're right. I should have told you."

Tony was taken aback, but he hid it well by folding his arms tighter. "You should have," he agreed. 

"Fury is a man of secrets, and when I took over from him, I told myself I wouldn't be the same." Beside him, May snorted, and he amended, "Well, not _completely_ the same. I shouldn't have stuck with his initial choice to keep it a secret. You guys were my first team, and I owed you that much." 

He held Tony's gaze, and to his surprise, Tony could see that he seemed to be completely sincere. "I'm sorry," he said simply. 

Tony honestly didn't know what to say. He was all for breaking social norms, but then again, what social norms _were_ there even for my-friend-was-brought-back-from-the-dead-by-alien-blood-and-didn't-tell-me-but-he-just-apologised-about-it?! 

It wasn't a thing that was _done,_ well, ever, so there weren't even any social norms for him to break in the first place. 

Fortunately for him, he didn't get the chance to. 

"Mr Stark, we have a problem," Peter's voice called from the roof of the building, and a second later he himself appeared, his mask off and his face contorted in worry. 

He paused, though, when he saw the four of them standing at the base of the building, taking in Tony's folded arms and lingering on the gun visible in Coulson's belt.

"Is… everything okay here?" he asked hesitantly, gesturing awkwardly down at their impromptu standoff. 

"Yeah, kid, we're fine," Tony replied, his attention immediately redirecting to Peter, as it tended to do whenever he was around. "What's the problem?" 

Peter hesitated for a moment longer, then swung down from the building to stand next to Tony. "Well, you remember those bombs I webbed up?" he asked in an undertone, leaning towards Tony. "They're kinda… glowing." 

"Glowing?" Tony repeated, his eyebrows flying up. "That can't be good." 

"They're making whizzing noises too," Peter added, somehow managing to combine a grimace and a nod. 

"That's _definitely_ not good," Tony said, already assessing the structure of the building - or, well, what remained of its structure - and trying to work out what the reason for the renewed glowing in the bombs could be. 

"Don't worry about it," Coulson said, taking Tony by surprise - he had momentarily forgotten that the other man was, you know, _alive_ thanks to his normal, or, as-normal-as-an-Avenger's-life-gets, conversation with Peter. 

Both Tony and Peter must have raised their eyebrows, because he smiled faintly as he continued, "That's actually why we came here in the first place. We're tracking the person who's setting those bombs."

"A real slimeball called James," Daisy supplied, straightening the sleeves of her leather jacket so her hands were completely uncovered. "Pyromaniac type, loves his bombs. Also, unfortunately, pyrokinetic." 

"Don't worry, though," she said, glancing up from her sleeves. "He won't be here, the cowardly little snake, and I can handle his bombs." 

"She can," Coulson agreed, with a father's proud smile. 

Tony couldn't help being a little sceptical, because she didn't seem to have _any_ kinds of tools on her - but, then again, Coulson wasn't the kind of man who made claims like that in vain, especially not when lives were at stake. 

And, anyway, it wasn't like FRIDAY was going _away_ \- he'd still have his AI as backup if things really went haywire. 

"Take us to the first bomb, kid," Tony told Peter, who, not wasting any time, immediately shot a web and swung himself up onto the roof. 

Daisy sighed wistfully as she looked up at him. "That looks _so fun,_ I wish I could do that," she said with a little sigh. Then she perked up, glancing at May out of the corner of her eye. "Hey, do you think I can do that?" 

"Let's not find out right now," May said drily. "We need you at full capacity to disable those bombs."

"Got it," Daisy said, switching to what Tony decided to call _Agent Mode_ and following Peter into the building, quick and lithe as she darted through piles of rubble and vaulted over fallen concrete pillars. 

Tony could see an agent's training in the way she moved, fast and purposeful, and checking exits and possible danger points as she went. 

He could also see _which_ agent's training it was as May followed her, moving in much the same effortless way through the destroyed building. 

Coulson, clearly having noticed him watching, was sporting a proud grin as he gestured after them with one hand, as if he was saying, _after you._

In response, Tony flipped his helmet shut and fired up his suit's boosters, rising a full two metres into the air before sardonically mimicking the gesture - after _you._

Then he flew after the women, twisting and looping through the ruined window just in time to hear Daisy saying, "... something to dissolve the webs, or can I just break them?" 

She was standing over one of the webbed-up bombs, Peter beside her and May a little way back, covering the exit. 

Peter, he had to note, was looking very dubious. _"Break_ the webs?" he repeated, and Tony knew that if the kid hadn't been the most sincerely nice soul on the planet, he would've told her that such a thing was impossible, those things could hold the weight of _six cars._

Tony, however, had no such scruples. "I'd like to see you try," he said, landing behind the pair and flipping open his visor. 

Daisy half-rolled her eyes, and instead of replying, simply stretched her hand out over the webbed-up bomb, closing her eyes for a second. Then - 

_Snap snap snap snap snap._

In a series of perfect cuts, like the slice of a very precise knife, the webs holding the bomb in position flew off, snapped neatly in the middle. 

Daisy's eyes snapped open, and, stretching her other hand over the bomb, too, blasted what seemed to be a superconcentrated shockwave straight into its core. 

It lit up a bright, fiery orange for a moment - then dimmed, and finally died completely as the concussive shockwave kept streaming over it. 

Daisy lowered her hands, giving them a little shake, and the bomb rolled over onto its side, limp and dead. 

"Right, where to next?" she asked, turning to Peter and quirking her eyebrows. 

Peter hurriedly closed his mouth and pointed into the next room, but not before a small squeak of "that was _so cool"_ escaped him. 

Daisy just looked flattered, and pretty damn pleased with herself. "Thanks," she said, grinning at him. "Now, c'mon, lead the way to the next one." 

Peter did so, and on the way, Tony heard him asking _how_ she had managed that, just-just catching her reply that her powers were vibration-based, and she could sense and manipulate the ambient frequencies of objects around her. 

Peter's reply was too faint for him to catch, but he was willing to bet it was some variant of _so cool._

For his part, Tony was lost for words - because Peter was right, it _had_ been _so cool._

Daisy definitely didn't need his help with the rest of the bombs, so he hung back a little, waiting for Coulson to catch up with him. 

"Why didn't you tell me she had powers?" he asked, giving his ex-handler and current-SHIELD-director (God, he still couldn't get used to that) a half-serious glare. 

"It didn't come up," Coulson said innocently, adding with a grin, "and, truthfully, I wanted to see the look on your face." 

Tony rolled his eyes, but he couldn't keep back his grin for long. "Fair enough," he said grudgingly. 

"I thought so," Coulson said, still wearing that half-amused, half-proud-of-his-daughter smile. 

Tony tilted his head, studying the other man. "You've changed, you know," he said. 

Coulson's smile turned wry. "Dying will do that for you." 

_"Parenting_ will do that for you," Tony corrected, nodding after Daisy. 

To his surprise, Coulson winced, shaking his head. "Oh, no, she's not my daughter." 

"Really?" Tony asked, flabbergasted. "I could have sworn… she looks so much like you and May…" 

"May and I aren't, uh, a _thing_ , either," Coulson said, wincing doubly. 

Well, you could have knocked Tony over with a feather. _"Seriously?"_ he asked, hardly able to believe it. "Damn." 

Coulson shrugged, half-raising one shoulder and not quite meeting Tony's gaze. 

"Well," Tony said, stepping forward and surprising himself when he clapped the other man on the shoulder, "Peter isn't my son. But he's still one of the best things in my life." 

With surprising sincerity, for him, he held our his hand, offering it to Coulson to shake. "It's not about how much we lose, it's about what we have left," he said, gripping the other man's hand firmly. "And I think… we both have a lot left despite it all." 

He turned to look down the half-collapsed corridor Peter, May and Daisy had disappeared down, and _that,_ Coulson couldn't argue with. 

"I'm glad we didn't lose you, though," Tony told Coulson, giving his hand a firm shake, which, for him, was the closest anyone would get to a hug. (Except Peter, but that was different.) 

"Me too," Coulson said, gripping Tony's hand for a moment more before releasing it, smiling in a way that said he had understood Tony's sentiment. "It took me a while to get there, but… I'm glad, too." 

He turned to look down the same corridor as Tony had a minute ago, and he didn't have to struggle to identify the emotion he saw in the other man's gaze. He saw it in himself; in every single photograph where he was looking at Peter. 

And Tony smiled. 

So yeah, Tony Stark was having a terrible day beforehe saw his old SHIELD liaison/team handler/almost friend apparently back from the dead, and with a wife and daughter no less (because they _were_ his wife and daughter no matter what he said, in spirit if not in biology. Which, honestly, meant just as much.) 

But _after_ he saw them? 

Well, he was having a _great_ day. 

_**The End.** _


End file.
